Although Kenya withdrew its proposal to list African Lion on Appendix 1
at the 13th Conference of the Parties of CITES, Kenya let it be known in
its withdrawal statement that it is not finished. Kenya is going to
continue to harp in the media and in various workshops and meetings that
provide stumps to cry alarm that the lion is "endangered". Kenya has
also promised to restrict lion hunting through future CITES Animal
Committee meetings which are held annually between the Conferences.

The Species Survival Network (SSN) that is made up of 71 of the hunting
world’s worst enemies is now chaired by the President of the Born Free
Foundation. It is thought to have largely engineered the Kenya proposal
and the Born Free President is in a position to continue that focus for
some time to come. Under his leadership, SSN distributed lion lapel pins
and handed out colored marker pens with "Appendix I for African lions"
as well as press and lobbying material attacking our Chardonnet lion
study. They widely misrepresented that an Appendix 1 listing would not
stop lion hunting while contradictorily urging in other documents that
safari hunting of lion must be stopped!

That said, Kenya and the SSN are not the greatest threat to lion hunting
that we face. When the lion population falls too much, no miracle will
save the hunting. Adopting better hunting practices is not enough.
Conservation Force is developing a pro-active plan to save the lion and
to save the hunting. We assumed most of this responsibility several
years back, but now our course is more resolutely set to do whatever is
necessary to prevent the lion of Africa from becoming another tiger. We
are working with the top lion experts in the world on a day-to-day basis
to fashion solutions. The problem is that lions are incompatible with
humans because they eat livestock and really eat people. Hunters can
increase the economic viability of lion habitat, help create
conservation incentives, tolerance and the revenue needed to fund
management programs, but we have to get to it. We need broad support to
get the job done.

Craig Packer, Ph.D. is a Distinguished McKnight University Professor
famed for his work on the Serengeti Lion Project and recognized as one
of the foremost authorities in the world on the African lion. He has
been kind enough to permit us to reprint the expert opinion he rendered
to the IUCN Cat Specialist Group when the IUCN was preparing its
analysis of the Kenya proposal. We provide it here for insight from a
real expert, if not the foremost expert, on what truly threatens African
Lion. Professor Packer summarizes in his last paragraph what our
commissioned Chardonnet Study described in 50 pages in Chapter III,
DRIVING FORCES.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Response to the Kenyan Proposal to Reclassify
Lions to Appendix 1

1.) The Kenyan recommendation is fundamentally flawed since it is
impossible to measure long-term changes in lion numbers. The earlier
figures were never meant to be taken seriously as population estimates;
they were just rough guesses of the order of magnitude of the overall
population. Instead of a million lions or ten thousand, the authors
suggested that there were probably on the order of a hundred thousand
across Africa as a whole. In contrast, the recent estimates stem from
the first systematic attempts to tally all the lions on the continent.
Crude guesses were made for each reserve or park, and these guesses were
summed up to give a crude total. The two most widely cited totals used
different techniques – Chardonnet included hunting reserves
(Conservation Force’s commissioned study); Bauer and van der Merwe did
not – and Chardonnet’s more inclusive estimate provided a larger number.

I was asked to contribute to the Bauer survey, and I made it clear to
the authors that my estimates for Tanzania and Kenya were far too crude
to be used for policy decisions. Tanzania has four of the largest lion
populations left in Africa (Serengeti, Selous, Moyo- wosi-Kigosi and
Rungwa-Kisigo-Ruaha), and I only provided rough numbers for Serengeti
and Selous. Further, I made no attempt to estimate the number of lions
outside the reserves even though there are numerous reliable reports of
man-eating lions in many parts of Tanzania each year. Thus, figures from
Tanzania are incomplete, and it is simply wrong to claim that recent
surveys show a "dramatic decline" in lion numbers – numbers may well
have dropped, but we have a poor idea how many lions live in Africa
today, and we’ll never know what happened over the past 20-50 yrs.
(Conservation Force – many believe lions in Tanzania have been
increasing in number).

2.) The Kenyan report also makes two erroneous claims about the impact
of disease on Africa’s lions. Canine distemper virus (CDV) did indeed
cause a dramatic short-term decline in our Serengeti study population,
but the population completely recovered within four years. (Conservation
Force is informed that in one year the Serengeti population increased
from 2,500 to 3,800) and is currently at its all time high (See Figure 1
on preceding page). There are no data whatsoever showing a measurable
impact of FIV infection on lion survival or reproduction. We were the
first research group to identify FIV in African lions, and Packer et al.
(1999) summarized 15 yrs of data on FIV in the Serengeti lions , finding
no difference in survival between animals that were infected at an early
age vs. those infected at a later age. This situation is essentially the
same as for SIV in numerous primates and FIV in pumas. The consensus
among lentivirus experts is that endogenous hosts are unharmed by these
viruses: severe immunodeficiency is only a serious health risk to novel
hosts such as humans and domestic cats that have only recently been
exposed. The only other pathogen besides CDV that appears to be
persistently harmful to lions is bovine tuberculosis (bTB). However, bTB
has infected the Serengeti lions for at least 20 yrs, prevalence has
never been higher than 5 percent and only four animals (out of hundreds)
have become seriously ill with the disease.

In contrast to the large outbred Serengeti population, the lions of
Hluhluwe-Umfolozi Park (HUP) and Ngorongoro Crater are both highly
inbred, and both populations are highly susceptible to infection: bTB
poses a more serious health risk to the HUP lions than in the Serengeti,
and the Crater lions have suffered three major disease outbreaks in the
past 10 yrs (1-2 of which were CDV). "Fresh blood" was introduced into
HUP in 1999 and a similar translocation will be undertaken in the Crater
in early 2005. If disease resistance is improved by the restoration of
genetic diversity, it will be important to find the revenue to finance
similar activities in other small lion populations. Reclassifying lions
to Appendix 1 would be irrelevant to restoring genetic diversity to
small populations in National Parks (e.g. Amboseli, Nairobi, Manyara)
and harmful to lions in smaller hunting reserves in southern Africa
since there would be little economic incentive for the hunters to manage
their inbred lion populations.

3.) The Kenyan recommendation states that quotas set for lion trophy
hunters in Tanzania are unsustainable. However, there is no evidence for
this assertion. Lion offtake in Tanzania has been nearly constant for
the past 10-15 yrs, indicating relatively stable lion population sizes
for the country as a whole. Although we do not know how many lions exist
throughout the country, the number is very likely to exceed
10,000-15,000 animals, so a total offtake of around 200 lions is less
than 2% of the total.

4.) The most important flaw in the Kenyan recommendation is that it
plays down the fact that lions are dangerous animals that kill people
and livestock. Rural Africans face real threats from lions, and they
retaliate to livestock losses or personal injury by trying to remove the
"problem animal." The number of lions killed by vengeful humans each
year is far greater than from any other cause. In the first six months
of 2004, one of my students, Bernard Kissui, documented the deaths of 21
lions around Tarangire National Park that were speared after killing
livestock. The Tarangire lions follow the migration during the wet
season, and most if not all of the victims originated from within the
National Park. Another student, Dennis Ikanda, has found that 6-7 lions
are killed by Masai each year in the Ngorongoro Conservation Area; most
of the victims had followed the wildebeest migration and originated from
Serengeti National Park. The true extent of lion killings from problem
animal control (PAC) is unknown since most cases are never reported to
wildlife authorities. But extrapolating from Tarangire and the NCA, the
number must be far greater than from trophy hunting, and PAC also
results in the deaths of adult females as well as males.

The overall reduction in the lion’s geographical range over the past
century has resulted almost entirely from PAC. I know of no cases where
lions have been extirpated from a hunting reserve, but lions are now
missing from large parts of Africa where human populations have
increased in rural areas. Reclassifying lions to Appendix 1 will not
directly protect lions from PAC. The most likely outcome would be to
reduce the tolerance of local communities: any serious reduction in lion
trophy hunting would diminish the economic incentives to coexist with
lions. Finally, a loss in revenue to trophy hunters would decrease their
abilities to invest in any form of protection for the lion populations
on their concessions.

Lions are indeed likely to decrease in numbers across Africa over the
next few decades, but reclassifying them to Appendix 1 would be a
serious mistake. The primary threat to the lion is from PAC rather than
from international trade. The most important step that CITES could take
would be to guide park managers, wildlife authorities and hunting
concessionaires with practical techniques for reducing the impact of
PAC.

Briefly Noted
Black Rhino Trophy Imports: Now that there are CITES quotas for black
rhino, which trophies are the most likely to be importable? Irregardless
of CITES, the US Endangered Species Act (ESA) still forbids the
importation of trophies of species listed as "endangered," unless
imports "enhance" the survival of the species "in the wild". The USF&WS
regulations adopted to implement the ESA expressly allow such permits as
well. In August 2003, the USF&WS published notice of a long-awaited
policy change to begin issuing such trophy imports very selectively on a
permit by permit (case by case) basis. The hunting and permit
applications must satisfy all existing regulatory requirements, be part
of a comprehensive program of the exporting country and be a net benefit
to the species "in the wild". It also must not jeopardize the species.

The implementation of the new proactive practices stalled as the
presidential election approached. Politically motivated
misrepresentations were flung far and wide in hopes of tarnishing Bush
in every way possible. Now that the presidential election is over, the
misrepresentations against the Bush Administration should no longer pose
a problem. The question remains, what constitutes "enhancement or
benefits" to survival of the species "in the wild"? The second question
is whether the underlying hunt jeopardizes (no jeopardy determination)
the species?

Our view is that the most likely import permit to be approved, if any,
is for black rhino taken in Namibia, or in state-protected areas in
South Africa. In both cases, the rhinos are government-owned and all
proceeds can be dedicated to the conservation of the rhino "in the
wild". Also, no matter where the hunt takes place, if the rhino is a
surplus male past the age of reproduction that is also a threat to other
reproducing rhino or calves, then "no jeopardy" and "net benefit"
findings should follow.

What about the import of trophies of captive-bred, privately-owned
rhino? That may present more of a problem. A significant portion of the
price must be directed to benefiting black rhino "in the wild" for the
program to warrant import. A private owner’s reinvesting proceeds in his
captive-bred herd on private land is not likely to be considered "in the
wild" unless the land in unfenced and large enough to be considered "in
the wild" which is unlikely with privately-owned rhino.

The number of black rhino in Namibia and South Africa is roughly the
same. Namibia has 1,134 of which 859 are on state-protected lands and
275 are on private land or communal lands/conservancies. All are
government-owned. Interestingly, black rhino in Namibia outnumber white
rhino five to one. There are 204 white rhino but 1,134 black rhino. It
is ironic because white rhino are already importable.

In South Africa there are 1,286 black rhino. Most (1,121) are on
government land and 165 are on private or communal land and are
privately-owned. In both countries there are a number of populations
where the sex ratio is out of balance, i.e., males outnumber females.
Nevertheless, the extra males cannot be translocated easily because of
the fatal fighting that ensues when they are moved. The CITES quotas of
five rhino in each country is less than one-half of one percent (.5) of
the populations, which are increasing at a rate of thirty times the rate
of the quota offtake. Furthermore, our information at this time is that
Namibia is only planning three hunts in 2005.

The bontebok has been the only exception to the practice that the
service will not permit imports of trophies listed as "endangered."
Bontebok are captive-bred and privately owned, as are some black rhino
in South Africa. The service insists that those permits were approved
long ago because the bontebok and/or revenue from bontebok hunting was
used to restore and protect bontebok in a state-owned protected area,
i.e., "in the wild". Whatever, it is going to be a harder sell to
convince the USF&WS today to issue trophy import permits for privately
owned rhino with the owner receiving the proceeds. In short, that means
that the ESA likely will prevent the black rhino from following the
proven conservation success trail of the white rhino. White rhino exist
in more than 100 separate, privately-owned populations in South Africa
in large part due to the revenue incentives of the private owners.

The black rhino population in southern Africa is equal to the level of
the white rhino when United States hunters played their role in saving
them. Fortunately for the white rhino it was never listed as endangered
the way black rhino are. It will take an Act of Congress or at least
strong administrative will on the part of the USF&WS for black rhino to
achieve their conservation value through hunting and achieve the "unendangered"
status that is within foreseeable reach. – John J. Jackson, III.